Her
by kiboeme
Summary: He knows her the moment he sees her, each and every time. Melizabeth reincarnation angst. Prettier than it is long, I promise. Cross-posted from Tumblr.


He knows her the moment he sees her, each and every time.

She changes from life to life, her features and colors shifting like seasons across the ages. Within each new skin, however, the same soul burns bright, and he need only glance once at her eyes to find her.

 _ **Elizabeth**_. Familiar. Comforting. A pillar of light and warmth to cling to in his darkness, her arms a place for rest sheltered from all that tries to tear him apart. She is his refuge and his reward.

Her voice is not always gentle but it is infallibly kind. She has a compassionate spirit, even after experiencing unimaginable hardship. The strength within her is quiet; a passive, reticent determination. Oftentimes it takes a backseat to her desire to please other people. When it finally reveals itself, however, it steals his breath without fail. She literally walks through fire, shrieks at the gods until they succumb to her, dives in front of attacks meant for others, sacrifices herself to fight for what she believes.

The world never deserves her wonder. Meliodas knows he deserves her presence even less, let alone her affection, and yet her generous heart lets him in. Her love protects him, life after life after life, from the shadows in his hearts.

Every time he sees her in her newest form, his heart shatters. He will notice her across a square, or collide with her in the street; their eyes will meet from either side of a hazy room, or she will stumble into his tavern and faint at his feet. He'll look deep into her eyes, hoping beyond hope that the soul gazing back remembers his name. Sometimes he catches a flicker of recognition, always quickly smothered by doubt.

Most of the time, there is not even a suggestion that her memories remain. She looks at him and does not see him, and suddenly the entirety of the world is claustrophobic. He cannot escape _life_ , and yet he cannot exist if his last anchor on this earth does not know him. He is trapped in the forgetfulness of her soul. Another piece of him is erased every time the woman he loves fails to recognize the lines of his face and the rasp of his voice. Yet despite this acute pain, with each reincarnation, he loves her more.

Then she tells him she remembers, and he shatters.

When she remembers her history, she remembers his failure. She remembers the pain of all the deaths he allowed her to suffer, dozens of lives that she loved and lost in. She remembers the moments he pushed her away with no explanation, his torment pressing through the cracks of its seal and transforming into a weapon. She remembers how sharply she felt the sting each time he discarded her. She remembers the agonizing ends when she was murdered at the hands of another, and those when Meliodas himself became her killer. She does not remember living into old age, nor spending long years with her lover.

She remembers that when her memories return, she meets her demise within less than a week. She remembers that fate hunts her.

Every time she returns, the crack in his soul widens. When she inevitably dies, his heart crumbles in on the vacuum she leaves behind. He drowns his agony in a sea of rage. He lets wave after wave of self-loathing swallow him whole, and he does not have to feel his keen sorrow.

Sometimes Merlin is there to witness him fall apart beside the corpse. He cannot bring himself to despise the expressions of pity and sadness on her face. He knows he must look pathetic, consumed by his grief. She stands by silently and waits until he numbs, then spends her time at his side so he will not be as alone as he wishes to be.

On one occasion, she offered herself to briefly fill the void in his life. The comfort they found was fleeting; Merlin was not the same as his precious Elizabeth. He knows the details of the witch's darkest secrets and the nuance of her deepest shame, and still she remains impenetrable to him. She, like Meliodas himself, has lived too long to give herself fully to another.

And so his very soul **aches** as he waits, and waits, and waits, for _her_.


End file.
